Do You Agree With JFK’s Dog Training Advice?

Yesterday I wrote an email in regard to Victoria Stilwell’s article on “balanced trainers.”

In case you missed it, you can read it on my blog.

Interesting emails came in after I sent it. One email from J.S. stated:

“I like reading your emails and they are very helpful but you are so defensive. Much of your writing lately has been negative and you’re always putting down other trainers.”

What?

Putting down other trainers?

I need to back up here a second and make something very clear. She and every other trainer are entitled to write anything they want about dog training.

Dog owners can choose to listen to whoever they want. What I try to point out to anyone that lands on Planet ADTM is that when you train your dog you need to know that you can use positive and negative consequences.

Every week I visit someone’s house and listen to them tell me that they have been told that they can’t tell their dog NO.

I sit across from dog owners every week and see the concern and frustration on their faces.

I know that some of the time their dog can be very lovable and a great companion. And at other times, their dog becomes a terror, ripping clothes, biting hands, stealing TV remotes, and jumping on anyone that walks through the front door.

Most of them have been through two or three training classes already.

Believe me, I am a small voice in a very big pond. The prevailing wisdom today is that you can only use positive reinforcement to train. And thousands of dog trainers conform to this dangerous belief and promote it.

And then you have a guy like me that follows the advice of John F. Kennedy who said:

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

If you disagree with JFK and me, that’s cool too. I wish you all the best and there are plenty of conformist dog trainers you can go to. Victoria Stilwell is one of them.
But if you want to get results training your dog, if you want to learn how to teach behaviors and also how to STOP behaviors, become a non-conformist and join the other non-conformists at the Dog Training Inner Circle.